Global Brands Will Turn to Single-Sourced Language Solutions

Our friends at localization industry think tank Common Sense Advisory recently posted a question to their blog: “Can LSPs Become the Exclusive Language Service Vendor for Their Clients?” From their own research, the answer was, paraphrased, “It’s a long shot.” Just 15 percent of the enterprises that they studied chose a single-source solution to their translation and localization needs. But the characteristics of who that minority group of brands were is important to note.
They are well-experienced buyers of language services.
They need suppliers that continue to prioritize innovation, drive, and scalability in their services provision.
They require vendors that can deliver comprehensive, multilingual, and round-the-clock services to meet their diverse demands.
As the localization industry reaches maturity, top companies feel comfortable abandoning multivendor strategies as a way to protect themselves from insolvency or performance risks. Moreover, they understand — as the CSA report underscores — that managing multiple vendors entails a lot of internal investment in staff and processes, which is entirely contrary to corporate goals that seek to reduce the costs of too much infrastructure and personnel.
So not only can we expect to see more global companies turning to single-sourcing in 2015, we can expect more vendors to follow the lead of companies like Moravia, Welocalize, and Lionbridge by investing in the “program-based not project-based” model that moves strong SLAs and KPIs to the fore.